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Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Easter 2017

I was thinking that taking pictures of our yearly Easter basket and festivities seemed slightly gratuitous. However, Enna loves going through our pictures and watching the videos. She mentioned prior to Easter that perhaps another animal would find it's way into the basket this year instead of Bunny. It made me realize that the kids love seeing the pictures, and they like knowing what sort of things to expect--the sense of tradition. So, please indulge me while I write another post about our Easter activities. (I couldn't remember what we did last year--see, this recording is just as much for me as for the kids. It turns out we spent Easter in a hotel after cleaning out our house for the final time and the day before we left to drive across the country. So, no Easter celebration and not surprising, Enna has no real memory of what our Easter traditions are except from pictures.)

The Saturday before, we busted out some watercolors (tubed and concentrated) and painted our wooden eggs. We had five left from two years ago (thank heaven!) and so each kid painted two and I painted one. I was uninspired this year. I rather liked the two characters that I had painted before (Humpty Dumpty and Little Red Riding Hood), but I was completely lacking in inspiration and skill. (Actually, I had an idea of painting a bunny or someone in a bunny suit, but I just couldn't figure out how to do that on a wooden egg.) So, instead I painted a field of flowers. Finn went for spots and Enna went for whimsy.

The next morning, the kids found the Easter basket which consisted of some dark Hersey's kisses (nut and gluten-free!), a fruit bar, a fruit pouch, stickers, pencils, some novel sugary cereal, cards from their Grandparents, and a small gift: a game for Finn and a hamster for Eileen.

For breakfast, I had made some hot-cross buns: a special and yummy treat. I kept it simple for dinner: Egg salad on toast, asparagus, fruit salad, and strawberry crisp for dessert. As I write this, it sounds simple compared to other traditional Easter meals of ham, potatoes, cakes, etc. However, it still required a lot of work. I found a new appreciation for my mother who spent all this time on the food only to have us gobble it up, not really appreciating all the effort. Parenthood really is an exercise in non-appreciation. I am just glad that I have a few months before another holiday comes around requiring extra preparation and effort on my part. Holidays are awesome for kids, not so awesome for me. I am also appreciating the idea of family and friend gatherings: where the work is shared by all and not just the one.

After dinner, I tried to rally for the Easter egg hunt, however both Mr. F and I were wiped. In the end, we had each kid hide the eggs upstairs for the other to find. This was great.....until the four year-old couldn't really remember where she had hidden the eggs. Also, she kept telling Finn where the eggs were hidden vs giving hints. (Admittedly a difficult concept for a four year-old to grasp.) This of course led to melt-downs from the seven year-old and headaches for the parents. Despite all this, the kids had fun. Phew. We had the hunt inside our house since Finn had taken a bath and was in his pajamas already. I then documented our unmade beds and cluttered rooms as I took pictures of the kids finding the eggs. (Oh look! Finn has hidden some eggs in the dirty clothes bin. Charming.) Documenting our imperfect life right here. You are welcome.